Paper Trails

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Any country is more than borders and geography. It also exists in the imagination.
   
In its first 50 years, Canada launched propaganda campaigns that helped shape its identity. Daniel Francis explores that process with Selling Canada (Stanton Atkins & Dosil). It’s a book loaded with illustrations intended to encourage settlers to farm in the West, young men to fight in the First World War, and tourists to spend time and money.
   
"The impetus for the book was visual," Francis says. "The designer had seen a lot of different posters and was struck by them. We sat down and tossed around some ideas.
   
"All three campaigns had areas that were left out of the story," he adds. "The gap between the message and the reality is one of the themes of the book."
   
Francis notes, for example, that posters advertising life on the Prairies showed forever blue skies and fields of yellow wheat but other elements were overlooked.
   
"Not only did they not mention weather," Francis says, "they were banned from using the word ‘snow.’ One of my favourite words to describe the climate was ‘salubrious.’ I think it meant healthy."
   
Recruitment posters showed smiling boys in uniform but not trench warfare in muddy fields. Meanwhile, the travel posters pictured Lake Louise and Banff as well as endless scarlet tunic-clad Mounties.
   
"It’s surprising the degree how much the Mounties are tied up in our consciousness,"  Francis says. "And it’s a particular Mountie, the red-coated rider of the plain, the first NWMP incarnation. They’re a handy comparison with the United States. We did the West better.
   
"No other country has a souvenir police force."

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Nation Maker (Random House Canada), the second volume of Richard Gwyn’s definitive biography of Sir John A. MacDonald, covers the years afters Confederation to his death in 1891.
   
In the current national imagination, MacDonald is associated with two things: his prodigious alcohol consumption (Gwyn points out that MacDonald did quit drinking) and his eagerness to execute Louis Riel.
   
"Riel is a romantic hero, and our only hero," Gwyn says. "It was terrible for (MacDonald’s) long-term reputation. But it didn’t hurt him that much at the time. His argument was that it was a political offense and should be treated as one.
   
"I do think the great tragedy is they were trying to do the same thing, trying to save their nation," he adds. "MacDonald was trying to save Canada and Riel trying to save the Metis."
   
Still, Gwyn has no doubts about MacDonald’s greatness, nor the grandness of his vision. From the CPR scandal to Canadianizing the West, MacDonald devoted his life to his country.
   
"I find it shocking that he tried to extend the vote for women," he says. "Even more, he tried to get Indians the vote. It was a wonderful thing. His idea was so idealistic and daring.
"Why did he care so much? He built it up," he adds. "He was absolutely bound and determined not to be American.
   
"It was his. He created it. He nurtured it for 25 years. No-one else could have done that."